Events from the year 1979 in art.

Events

October 25 Events Pre-1600 * 285 or 286 – Execution of Crispin and Crispinian, Saints Crispin and Crispinian during the reign of Diocletian, now the patron saints of leather workers, curriers, and shoemakers. * 473 – Emperor Leo I (emperor), ...

–

Frederic Edwin Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painting, landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for paintin ...

's 1861 painting '' The Icebergs'' sells for US$2.5 million at

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

New York, the third-highest amount paid for any painting at auction at this date. *

November 15 Events Pre-1600 * 655 – Battle of the Winwaed: Penda of Mercia is defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria. * 1315 – Growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy: The Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft ambushes the army of Leopold I in the Battle ...

– Art historian and former

Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures The office of the Surveyor of the King's/Queen's Pictures, in the Royal Collection Department of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, is responsible for the care and maintenance of the royal collection of pictures owned by ...

Anthony Blunt Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), (formerly styled Sir Anthony Blunt from 1956 until November 1979), was a leading British art historian and a Soviet spy. Blunt was a professor of art history at the University ...

's role as one of the ' Cambridge Five'

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

s for the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

is revealed by

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...

in the

House of Commons of the United Kingdom The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 memb ...

. * The ''Xing xing'' ("The Stars Group") of 20 avant-garde Chinese artists (including Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Li Shuang, Qu Leilei, Ah Cheng and

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei ( ; , IPA: ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been ...

) stage an illegal exhibition outside the

National Art Museum of China The National Art Museum of China (NAMOC; ) is the national art museum of China and one of the largest art museums in the nation. Located in Beijing and opened since 1963, it is a level-1 public welfare institution funded by the Ministry of Cultur ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. * The

Bauhaus Archive The Bauhaus Archive () is a state archive and Museum of Design located in Berlin. It collects art pieces, items, documents and literature which relate to the Bauhaus School (1919–1933), and puts them on public display. Currently, the museum ...

, designed by Alexander Cvijanović with Hans Bandel after

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...

, is completed in

West Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...

, Germany. * Edward Delaney's statue of

Wolfe Tone Theobald Wolfe Tone, posthumously known as Wolfe Tone (; 20 June 176319 November 1798), was a revolutionary exponent of Irish independence and is an iconic figure in Irish republicanism. Convinced that, so long as his fellow Protestantism in ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

is destroyed by terrorists.

Awards

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...

: Wes Walters – ''Portrait of Phillip Adams''

Works

* Michael Andrews –
Melanie and Me Swimming
' * Judy Chicago – '' The Dinner Party'' (collaborative installation, completed) * Paul Delvaux – '' The Road to Rome'' (painting) *

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. Her work focuses on the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, projectio ...

– ''Truisms'' *

Lee Kelly Lee Kelly (May 24, 1932 – March 28, 2022) was an American sculptor who has more than 30 sculptures on display between Eugene, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. Kelly has been called "Oregon's sculptor". Personal life Born in rural McCall, Ida ...

– sculptures (Portland, Oregon) ** '' Elkhorn'' ** '' Nash'' * Jack Mackie and Charles Greening – '' Dancer's Series: Steps'' (bronze, Seattle) *

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

** '' La Vie en Rose'' **'' Salut Tom'' * Andrzej Pitynski – '' The Partisans'' (aluminum sculpture) * Enzo Plazzotta – ''Attitude II (

Margot Fonteyn Dame Margaret Evelyn de Arias Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, DBE ( Hookham; 18 May 191921 February 1991), known by the stage name Margot Fonteyn (), was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with th ...

)'' * John Rogers – '' 118 Modules'' (sculpture, Portland, Oregon) *

Michael Snow Michael James Aleck Snow (December 10, 1928 – January 5, 2023) was a Canadian artist who worked in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are ''Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Rég ...

– ''

Flight Stop ''Flight Stop'', also titled ''Flightstop'', is a 1979 site-specific art work by Canadian artist Michael Snow. Located in the Toronto Eaton Centre in the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the work hangs from the ceiling and appears t ...

'' (sculpture,

Toronto Eaton Centre CF Toronto Eaton Centre, commonly referred to simply as the Eaton Centre, is a shopping mall and office complex in the Downtown Toronto, downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned and managed by Cadillac Fairview (CF). It was named ...

) * Don Wilson – '' Holon'' (sculpture, Portland, Oregon)

Exhibitions

April 22 Events Pre-1600 * 1500 – Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral lands in Brazil ( discovery of Brazil). * 1519 – Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés establishes a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico. * 1529 – Treaty of Zara ...

June 10 Events Pre-1600 * 671 – Emperor Tenji of Japan introduces a water clock ( clepsydra) called ''Rokoku''. The instrument, which measures time and indicates hours, is placed in the capital of Ōtsu. * 1190 – Third Crusade: Frederic ...

– ''Special Projects (Scott Belville. John Boone. Andrea Callard. Katherine Carter. Ian Crofts, Lauren Ewing, Heide Fasnicht, Betty Goodwin, Norman Hasselriis, Alan Herman, Jeff (Jeff Russell), and Elaine Reichek)'' at PS1 in

Queens, New York Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

Births

* July 25 – Ahmed Mater, Saudi artist * ''date unknown'' ** Aideen Barry, Irish multimedia and performance artist ** Éric Bourdon, French painter and writer ** Elise Fouin, French

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

Deaths

January 11 Events Pre-1600 * 532 – Nika riots in Constantinople: A quarrel between supporters of different chariot teams—the Blues and the Greens—in the Hippodrome escalates into violence. * 630 – Conquest of Mecca: Muhammad and his ...

– Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, German-born French

Art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationsh ...

(born

1884 Events January * January 4 – The Fabian Society is founded in London to promote gradualist social progress. * January 5 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera '' Princess Ida'', a satire on feminism, premières at the Savoy The ...

) *

February 3 Events Pre-1600 * 1047 – Drogo of Hauteville is elected as count of the Apulian Normans during the Norman conquest of Southern Italy. * 1112 – Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, u ...

– Aaron Douglas, American

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

(born

1898 Events January * January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queen ...

) *

February 7 Events Pre-1600 * 457 – Leo I becomes the Eastern Roman emperor. * 987 – Bardas Phokas the Younger and Bardas Skleros, Byzantine generals of the military elite, begin a wide-scale rebellion against Emperor Basil II. * 1301 & ...

– Charles Tunnicliffe, British wildlife painter (born 1901) *

March 20 Events Pre-1600 *1206 – Michael IV of Constantinople, Michael IV Autoreianos is appointed Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. *1600 – The Linköping Bloodbath takes place on Maundy Thursday in Linköping, Sweden: five Swedish n ...

– Jean Charlot, French painter and illustrator (born 1898) *

April 5 Events Pre-1600 * 823 – Lothair I is crowned King of Italy by Pope Paschal I. * 919 – The Fatimid invasion of Egypt (919–921), second Fatimid invasion of Medieval Egypt, Egypt begins, when the Fatimid heir-apparent, Al-Qa'im (Fa ...

– Eugène Gabritschevsky, Russian

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

and

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

(born 1893) *

June 23 Events Pre-1600 * 229 – Sun Quan proclaims himself emperor of Eastern Wu. * 1266 – War of Saint Sabas: In the Battle of Trapani, the Venetians defeat a larger Genoese fleet, capturing all its ships. * 1280 – The Spanish ...

– Reynolds Stone, English wood engraver (born 1909) * June 25 **

Dave Fleischer Dave Fleischer (; July 14, 1894 – June 25, 1979) was an American film director and producer who co-owned Fleischer Studios with his older brother Max Fleischer. He was a native of New York City. Biography Early life and career Fleisch ...

, Austrian American

animator An animator is an artist who creates images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animat ...

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

, and film producer (born 1894) ** Philippe Halsman, Latvian American portrait photographer (born

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

) * July 13 – Ludwig Merwart, Austrian painter and

graphic artist A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming l ...

(born

1913 Events January * January – Joseph Stalin travels to Vienna to research his ''Marxism and the National Question''. This means that, during this month, Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky and Tito are all living in the city. * January 3 &ndash ...

) *

August 20 Events Pre-1600 *AD 14 – Agrippa Postumus, maternal grandson of the late Roman emperor Augustus, is mysteriously executed by his guards while in exile. * 636 – Battle of Yarmouk: Arabs, Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take c ...

– Christian Dotremont, Belgian painter and poet (born 1922) * August 29 – Ivon Hitchens, English painter (born 1893) *

September 17 Events Pre-1600 * 1111 – Highest Galician nobility led by Pedro Fróilaz de Traba and the bishop Diego Gelmírez crown Alfonso VII as "King of Galicia". *1176 – The Battle of Myriokephalon is the last attempt by the Byzantine E ...

– Paul Maze, French-born English Post-Impressionist painter (born

1887 Events January * January 11 – Louis Pasteur's anti-rabies treatment is defended in the Académie Nationale de Médecine, by Dr. Joseph Grancher. * January 20 ** The United States Senate allows the United States Navy to lease Pearl Har ...

) *

November 8 Events Pre-1600 * 960 – Battle of Andrassos: Byzantines under Leo Phokas the Younger score a crushing victory over the Hamdanid Emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla. * 1278 – Trần Thánh Tông, the second emperor of the Trần dyn ...

– Edward Ardizzone, British writer and illustrator (born

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15 ...

) *

November 20 Events Pre-1600 * 284 – Diocletian is chosen as Roman emperor. * 762 – During the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang dynasty, with the help of Huihe tribe, recaptures Luoyang from the rebels. *1194 – Palermo is conquered by Henry ...

– Tyra Lundgren, Swedish painter, ceramist, glass and textile designer and writer on art (born

1897 Events January * January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City. * January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a punitive expedit ...

) *

December 5 Events Pre-1600 *63 BC – Cicero gives the fourth and final of the Catiline Orations. * 633 – Fourth Council of Toledo opens, presided over by Isidore of Seville. *1033 – The 1033 Jordan Rift Valley earthquake, Jordan Rift Val ...

– Sonia Delaunay, Ukrainian-French artist (born 1885) * December 23 –

Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemianism, bohemian, and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who we ...

, American-born

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

collector (born 1898) * December 26 – Karl Hubbuch, German painter, printmaker and draughtsman (born 1891) * ''date unknown'' ** Russell Brockbank, Canadian-born

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

(born

) ** Sheila Fell, English painter (born

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

)

Awards

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1979 In Art Years of the 20th century in art 1970s in art

Events

Awards

Works

Exhibitions

Births

Deaths

Awards

See also

References